


glimpse of an eternity

by QuickYoke



Series: and pride, insurmountable [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Erotic Electrostimulation, Established Relationship, F/F, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 19:24:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15298365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickYoke/pseuds/QuickYoke
Summary: Yellow Diamond must prepare for their next trip to Earth. Set just before "Reunited"





	glimpse of an eternity

_ “Oh, pride, pride...It simply proved insurmountable. There was so much, oh, far too much for me. I mean, there’s the weather, there’s the water and the land, there are the animals, and the buildings, and the past and the future, there’s space, there’s history. And, of course, there's time. And place. And there's you...You kissed me beside the pond.” _

_ “Ten thousand years ago.” _

_ “It’s still happening.” _

_ ― Michael Cunningham, The Hours _

 

* * *

* * *

Light from a distant sun glanced across the observation dome’s glassy, irregular surface. Inside, seated atop a high-backed throne-like chair, Yellow Diamond paused. Her hand was outstretched, trapped mid-message to a Nephrite in sector 9 awaiting orders. Her fingers hovered over the display panel, but she looked out among the endless black of space. There, the glimmer of ancient starlight and a resounding silence that filled the otherwise empty chamber like a haze of smoke as she gazed at Homeworld’s sky. Alone, but for her thoughts.

Perhaps she should not have been so hard on Pink. Perhaps she should have been less harsh, more gentle. Leniency was not in her nature, yet it seemed regret was.

Pink always was different. Always wanting to move too quickly. Always talking too fast, too incessantly.

“You're a Diamond! Act like one!”

“Well, maybe I don't want to  _ be _ a Diamond!”

And Yellow had laughed at her. A harsh, ugly sound. The memory vivid and cutting as Homeworld’s architecture sprawling far below. 

A nudge at her elbow dragged her attention back to the present. No doubt Pink had grown bored and surly. Again. 

With a sigh, Yellow said, “What is it this time, honey?”

When she looked down however, it was to find the wide-eyed gaze not of Pink, but of her Pearl staring back.

“I -” Yellow Pearl spluttered, her face flushing an amber hue. “I - uh -”

Yellow Diamond scowled. “Why,” she hissed, “did you touch me?”

Pearl stood at rigid attention. “Forgive me, My Diamond! You ordered me to notify you of when you went still and did nothing for more than an hour at a time. I tried telling you. I even climbed atop your chair and waved in front of your face, but you didn’t respond. So, I - I touched you. Just to get your attention!” she added, hasty, nearly frantic at whatever expression stole across Yellow’s face. “Like you told me to, My Diamond!”

For a moment, Yellow said nothing. Her eyes narrowed. She turned back to the panel and continued typing her message. Her fingers flew across the keys as if to make up for lost time. “An hour, you said?”

“Yes, My Diamond.”

Yellow did not dignify the confirmation with a response. Instead, she pulled up an additional display screen with the date and time, and placed it in the corner of her vision so she would not so easily forget. She sent the message. Thousands of years since Pink’s shattering, and still the memories of her burned bright as starlight. The seconds counted down. The minutes. The cycles.

Had she ever been so reckless, so impatient? When she’d first emerged, had White been as exasperated by her and Blue? Their haste, their vigour, their bold, brash, brazen youth?

“My Diamond?”

Yellow blinked. She rolled her eyes. “What now, Pearl?”

Pearl cringed, but still pointed out, “You did it again. An - An hour, I mean.”

Pearl was right. All of the holographic panels had dimmed due to prolonged inactivity. 

Swiping the panels away with an irritable wave of her hand, Yellow muttered, “This is pointless.”

She rose to her feet. Her Pearl scurried to keep up as she walked towards the exit. The doors opened at a touch of her Pearl's hand at the control panel, and without pausing Yellow strode from the observatory. Her footfalls sent rumbling shudders through the floors and walls, echoing among the high-vaulted ceiling, announcing her presence long before she arrived. This far up the private observation tower, there were few other gems, but as she descended the spiral staircase they all stopped and saluted as she passed.

She paid them no heed. She hardly even noticed them. Even further along when walking through halls swarming with activity, all of which came to a halt upon her arrival, Yellow ignored them. The lesser gems all moved out of her way to line the walls and salute. She angled her head and glanced down at a troupe of Quartz soldiers snapping to attention as their Agate barked orders at them. How small they seemed. How insignificant. Their voices mere whispers, faint and difficult to hear.

Yellow kept walking, not once breaking her stride. "Pearl," she said, "Is White Diamond still in the Great Temple?"

All of the other gems in the hallway except Pearl flinched when she spoke. Once, she might have tried finding a more nuanced authority by making others lean in to listen, as Blue did, but that had never been Yellow's strong suit. Eventually, she had stopped caring, and spoke as she pleased. 

"Yes, My Diamond," Pearl answered.

"And how long has she been there?"

Pearl brought up a personalised panel and tapped quickly at it. "Nearly four cycles."

Yellow Diamond's footsteps hesitated almost imperceptibly. Through the windows beyond, she could just make out the crystal spires of the Great Temple, glimmering in the atmospheric distortion. She kept walking. "Has she moved?"

"I - uhm - I don't know?"

Yellow sneered, and when she spoke she enunciated each word very clearly. "Then find out."

"Of - Of course, My Diamond." Pearl tapped a few more buttons on her panel. She spoke at length with the outline of another Pearl on the screen. Finally, she minimised the panel and began in a tremulous voice, "She has, but -"

When Pearl trailed off, Yellow arched an eyebrow and glanced sidelong in her direction. "But what?"

"Well," Pearl wrung her hands. "From what I understand, she has not moved very much in that entire time. Just the usual: asking for the occasional update, giving an order, wanting to know what day it is."

"I see," Yellow said. 

She rounded a corner and parted a whole new hallway of lesser gems like a furrow parting earth. Pearl raced to keep up. Yellow did not slow her steps. If anything, she quickened them. Her jaw tightened when she caught sight of a figure larger than even herself ahead at a crossroads of two hallways. 

At first glance it appeared to be a monument to the Diamonds, one of their own given shape, like the mural paintings Blue had commissioned so many millennia ago when Pink had finally been given her first colony. The statue was caught in mid-motion, as if it had simply stopped in place whilst wandering the halls. Every gem skirted around its feet, giving it a wide berth, as if afraid to touch it. Yellow did the same. The hems of its long gown ruffled as she passed.

Not a monument at all. An ancient Diamond, grown so old she forgot the passage of time, forever entombed in this place on her way to some unknown destination. This, a living mausoleum. Every century or so, a gem would swear blue and blind that the ancient Diamond had blinked her slow-lidded eyes, had twitched her hands, had turned her head to deliver orders to a long-dead Pearl, only to fall deep into thought and immobility once more. 

Yellow walked a bit faster. 

"Pearl," she growled.

"Yes, My Diamond?"

"What is the status of my ship?"

"Your personal transport is ready to depart for Earth whensover you wish," Pearl answered. She even swiveled her small screen to show Yellow, though Yellow did not look.

With relief, Yellow rounded another corner and the ancient Diamond fell far behind. "Good," she muttered. "It would seem that the only way to get anything done these days is to do it myself."

Her Pearl sniffed, at once haughty and dismissive. "That a gem of your luster should have to stoop so low is a disgrace. This whole debacle should have been handled with the first envoy you sent to Earth! Instead, the Jasper goes missing, and that worthless little Peridot turns traitor! Why, it's positively -!"

Pearl stumbled into silence when the corners of Yellow's mouth turned down.

"Forgive me, My Diamond," Pearl stuttered.  "I know it's not my place to be so indignant on your behalf, but -"

"No, it's not," Yellow cut her off before she could continue to blather on. When Pearl winced at the sharp rebuff, Yellow sighed and slowed her steps until she drew to a stop beneath arched columns flanking a massive door. "Which is not to say that I don't appreciate your persistent loyalty."

At that barest admission, Pearl's eyes went wide and glossy and she stared up at Yellow with an awe verging on outright reverence.

Yellow grimaced. "Pearl."

"Yes, My Diamond?"

"Stop crying at once."

Pearl sniffled and wiped at her cheeks. "Apologies, My Diamond."

For a moment they stood beneath the archway in silence. Pearl cast a bashful look up at her, and Yellow arched an eyebrow. "Well?"

Pearl blinked in confusion. "Well, what?"

Rolling her eyes, Yellow pointed. "Aren't you going to open the door?"

With a startled squeak, Pearl leapt into action. She slapped her hand down on the control panel, and the door slid open. Yellow stepped into the next room. When Pearl tried to follow, Yellow waved her away. "That will be all."

Pearl couldn't quite hide the disappointment on her face, but she bowed and shut the door behind Yellow nonetheless. Yellow closed her eyes and let herself stand for a moment. No motion. No sound. Just a long drifting stillness. 

"Yellow?"

The sound of Blue's voice anchored her in place. Yellow opened her eyes and took a step further into the room. She placed her hands behind her back in an officious pose. "I came by to check that you were prepared for our trip back to that miserable rock."

Blue frowned at her from across the room. She lay propped upon one elbow atop a richly ornamented divan. Pushing herself upright, Blue dismissed her Pearl with a nod, then waited for her Pearl to leave the room before turning her dark glower upon Yellow. "Last I looked, we weren't scheduled to depart for another two days."

"Half a day, actually," Yellow corrected her. "Which is precisely why I wanted to check in."

Blue narrowed her eyes and countered with, "Pearl would have notified me when it was time to leave. What's this really about?"

When Yellow walked across the room, she had to navigate around various clusters of Pink's possessions before she could lean her hip against the long table facing the tall latticed windows. A suit of antiquated armour tangled one of Yellow's ankles, and she nearly tripped. The breastplate was stamped with a five-petaled rose -- Pink's personal insignia. How ironic.

Lip curling, she kicked it aside with the toe of her boot. "We need to have a talk about your latest -" Yellow waved her hand towards the accumulation of Pink's personal items around Blue's chambers, "- fixation."

Blue rubbed at her brow. Though she looked irate, her voice only sounded tired. "I told you to give me more time to grieve. What about that don't you understand?"

"Time is precisely the problem." Yellow crossed her arms. "When was the last time you held Court?"

Blue sighed. Her veil was draped over the back of the divan, its liquid-dark hems pooling on the floor, leaving her head and shoulders exposed. "Does it even matter?"

Yellow squared her jaw. "It's been centuries, hasn't it?"

"And so what if it has? I trust my appointed advisors to make the right decisions in my absence. Can you say the same?"

"There's a difference between trusting your Emeralds and Nephrites, and participating in benign neglect," Yellow snapped. "Just look at the state of you! Do you even remember what day it is?"

"Yellow -"

"It's bad enough White can hardly rouse herself for long enough to -!"

Yellow bit back the words before she could say something else she would come to regret. Back straightening, she stood taller and turned aside to glare out the windows towards the ink-black sky pierced with starlight and the crown of distant buildings jutting up from the horizon. Behind her, she could hear Blue rise from her seat. The shuffle of footsteps. The drag of cloth across patterned stone, rich and heavy. 

"Yellow,” Blue spoke more firmly now, her voice near enough to touch, and she asked again, "What's this really about?"

Yellow did not turn to face her. Like this, encloistered in a private tower, away from the prying eyes of the others, they moved slowly. Their voices were deep, rumbling echoes. They were edifice-like. Unchanging. Weathering any storms. Outlasting every season. Beings who witnessed the birth and death of planets as though it were a routine cycle. 

“I’ve been -” Yellow clenched her teeth, “-losing time. An hour here and there. I blink, and it’s gone.”

“Only an hour?” Blue replied dryly.

“This isn’t a joke, Blue.”

“Do I look like I’m laughing?”

Yellow had heard tales of other lesser civilisations that piled up the belongings of dead monarchs with their bodies and set them ablaze. She had been told the ritual was supposed to be purgative. To gather everything held dear in one place. To be aflame. To burn away, entire. She wondered if Pink's personal items would burn so easily, or if that would even help when nothing else could.

"I would prefer laughter to this, this -" Yellow gripped the edge of the table. She could not look at Blue. Could not stand the thought. "-incessant mourning. Our kind can't live in the past without being trapped by it. You need to move on."

"What is it you think I've been trying to do?" Blue asked, exasperated. 

Slipping. Falling. Drowning in a grief from which neither of them could break free. The slow descent into something far more grave and far more certain.

Her fingers digging into the quartz-veined table, Yellow growled, "I think you refuse to see sense. I think you're too deep to see how far you've sunk. For beings like us, there are fates worse than Shattering."

A pause, and then Blue said slowly, incredulously, "You think we're Stagnating?"

Yellow scoffed. "What else could you call this?"

"We're far too young to fear that fate, Yellow."

"I'm not afraid," Yellow insisted, lifting her chin and giving her best glare. "I'm reasonable. The conclusion is perfectly logical."

Of course, even her most withering of looks slid right off of Blue, who smiled, a wry tilt at one corner of her mouth. "Yes, you always had a penchant for twisting yourself into facets with logic."

When Yellow clenched her hand, she could feel the veined marble beneath her fingers creak beneath the strain. "I'm being serious. White hasn't been able to move from the temple for four cycles now."

"White is over a quarter of a billion cycles older than we are. I'd say she's sprightly for her age." There was that slight drawl in Blue's tone again. Normally that sort of teasing note would make Yellow relax, but now it only made her tense. "And I'd say you were overreacting. As usual."

"Overreacting?" Yellow repeated, incredulous. She laughed, that same ugly laugh from her memories. "That is rich, coming from you."

Furrows formed a groove between Blue's eyebrows. "I'm moving on as quickly as I know how. I just need more time."

“We don’t have more time!” Yellow knew her voice was climbing, but could not stop it. She could feel them piling up at her feet like kindling, the burdens. Waiting for a stray spark. “We were supposed to have more time, but we don’t! We were supposed to stand down eventually and let Pink step up in our place! We were supposed to -!”

A crack filled the air. Yellow froze. Chunks of quartz-riddled marble crashed to the floor as she gripped the table's edge so tightly it crumbled beneath her grasp. Snatching her hand back, she curled her fingers into a fist at her side. 

Blue raised an unimpressed eyebrow at the debris scattered along the ground. Motes of dust from the gouged table glimmered in the air, trapped by starlight slanting through the latticed windows like a pale resin. She did not admonish Yellow for the wreckage. She knew all too well what it was like, living an indestructible life among so many destructible things.

“And what would you even do with more time? Tell me.” Blue said, her voice soft but her gaze sharp enough to cut. “Conquer more planets? Found more colonies?”

“No,” Yellow snapped. “I just want - I just want time.”

“Time for what? Time is worthless, in and of itself. It is a tool. A means of acquiring things, performing actions, wasting and wanting.” Blue pressed. When she took a step closer, Yellow took one away until her lower back jutted against the grooved edges of the table. Caught and cornered.  “What do you want, Yellow? What more could you possibly want?”

“Time with you, damn it!” Yellow’s voice was thunder-graven and livid. “I was supposed to have more time with you and with her and -! I'm not ready for us to Stagnate yet! I don’t want to blink one day and find I’ve lost a century without you in it! I’m not ready for this to be over! I don't want to -!”

Yellow choked on the words. She shut her mouth so hard her teeth clicked. Turning away, she cleared her throat. Confessions seared at the back of her mouth, piling up, verbs and nouns, ash and driftwood. 

The tremble of footfalls across the ground, and Yellow could feel a hand on her shoulder. Warm and gentle. “I'm here now.”

Yellow did not turn around to face Blue. Her reply came out scratchy and sharp despite her best intentions. “Yes. You are.”

Blue's hand settled between Yellow's shoulder blades, tracing the curve of her spine with her fingertips. “Well then,” Blue tracked her fingers across vertebrae. “Tell me what you want. We have time. Half a day, wasn't it?”

Yellow gave a huff of laughter, then muttered, “Not nearly long enough.”

“It never is.” Blue traced circles down to the small of Yellow’s back. “You know I’ve missed you, too.”

“Of course, I know that.”

“Oh?” Blue’s fingers teased at the angles of Yellow’s waist, making her jerk. “That explains this whole spectacle, then. And the one at the zoo.”

Sufficiently goaded, Yellow finally rounded on her with a scowl. “Spectacle -!”

Before she could finish, Blue pinned her in place against the table with her hips. “If you wanted my attention, there are better ways of going about it. You should know that by now.”

Yellow’s mouth went dry. She opened it as if to speak, but no words came out. 

Blue leaned in, close enough to kiss, her eyes heavy-lidded and her touch burning at Yellow’s hip. “You still haven’t told me what you want. Unless all you intended to do was storm in here and break all my furniture?”

Baring her teeth, Yellow yanked at Blue’s wrist and seized her around the waist, switching their places. With a brief grunt she lifted Blue up so that she was sitting atop the table. Blue steadied herself with a hand at Yellow’s shoulder. When Yellow nudged Blue’s legs apart to stand between them, Blue raised her eyebrows and said, “You’re not actually going to break my table any more than you already have, are you?”

“Not unless you want me to.”

“No.”

“No?” Yellow punctuated her query by sliding a hand beneath Blue’s robes.

Blue aimed a flat stare at her and repeated firmly,  _ “No.” _

She still hooked an ankle around Yellow and pulled her closer so that they were flush against one another. When Yellow kissed her, she responded in kind, her free hand toying with the hair at the nape of Yellow’s neck. With a shiver, Yellow broke away. Blue rested their foreheads together, and for a long uncalculated moment, they were still.

“I remember,” Yellow cupped Blue’s cheek, then ran her hand down Blue’s neck. “I remember the first time we did this.”

“On the third moon circling that ocean planet in sector 4?” Blue’s breath hitched when Yellow’s thumb caressed the divot of her collarbone. “Stars, that feels like an eternity ago.”

“No, it feels like just a moment ago.”

The memory came roaring back, clear as crystal. How intangible Blue had looked awash in the glow of moonlight, silhouetted by the coronal planet like a crown, her smile soft and her eyes softer still. How shocked Yellow had been to touch her and feel warmth and substance. How she had expected her hand to pass right through Blue as if through a crescent of cold and ghostly moonlight.

Now, the tips of Yellow’s fingers grew swift and silvered. Light swept up their hands, brimming to their shoulders, blinding and all-consuming. The thrill of fusion seared in the pit of Yellow's stomach, the thrill of becoming something more, something better -- far better than she could ever be alone. Before they could fuse,  Blue gasped and broke the contact, jerking her hands and leaning away. 

“Not -” she shook her head and glanced towards the fragile windows and the sharply vaulted ceiling. Fused, they would dwarf even this cavernous space, merging together to create an entity too vast for enclosed spaces. “Not here.”

Yellow did not ask  _ 'where then?’ _ like she desperately wanted too. They were always intended to be a set. Twin cornerstones of society, equals yet opposites. Together, they could perform feats beyond mortal ken. Alone, she was less than even a half. Hollow and forever lacking. Her grip tightened around Blue’s waist, but she only said, “Fine, yes. That's fine.”

Another time, she told herself. Always another time. The thought made her teeth clench and her chest ache, a thorny scratch growing beneath her ribs, puncturing bone and tissue. She kissed the thought away, burnt up and burnt out, a fervent sharing of smoke-flushed regret between mouths. Blue kissed her back just as fiercely, and Yellow groaned against her. She tipped Blue’s head to the side so she could scrape her teeth against the column of Blue’s throat and relish her shaky sigh of pleasure.

Reaching up, Yellow grazed her thumb across Blue’s breast, and even through the thick wine-dark cloth separating them Blue had to stifle a gasp. Energy crackled from Yellow’s shoulder to her elbow, racing to the tips of her fingers. The resultant shock tread the space between too mild and too acute, an electric current stinging enough to be felt from crown to heel. 

With a hiss, Blue gave a jolt, but did not pull away. She buried her head in the crook of Yellow’s shoulder. As Yellow traced electric patterns across Blue’s chest, her hands clutched at Yellow’s back, raking her nails down Yellow’s shoulder blades. With a groan, Blue bit her lip and pushed at the top of Yellow’s head. Yellow went without question until she was kneeling before Blue upon the hard planes of the floor. 

Frantically, she pushed aside the long hems of Blue’s robes. She nipped and sucked a trail along Blue’s inner thighs. Blue’s breathing grew ragged, quivering with every touch, and she kept a firm grip on Yellow’s hair, yanking when Yellow’s mouth found the juncture of her thighs. Yellow wasted no time. She draped Blue’s legs over her shoulders, and tugged at her own pants, shoving her hand down. She rolled her hips against her own fingers, and worked her tongue against slick wanton heat. Blue rocked against her, demanding more friction Yellow was only too eager to give. One of Blue’s heels dug into Yellow’s spine, insistent, spurring her on. 

Perhaps it took a moment. Perhaps an eternity. Perhaps it happened yesterday. Perhaps this, too, was a shadow of reality, a mere memory posing as the present. A glimpse of the past in which she was already lost. 

With a cry and a jerk of her hips, Blue came. Her fist tightened its hold on Yellow’s hair, hard enough to sting. Yellow kept flicking her tongue, urging her through even as her own fingers quickened their pace until it was too much, and she pulled back to pant against the softness of Blue’s stomach. Yellow curled her own fingers and, shuddering, choked on a high desperate note, vaguely aware of Blue carding her hands through her short hair and whispering words of soft encouragement. Yellow ground the palm of her hand against her own clit, and came. The moment stretched, ageless and incandescent, then slowed. She blinked, still panting. Blue was combing her fingers through Yellow’s hair, humming a warm and absent tune. 

Catching her breath, Yellow pulled her hand from her pants and rose to her feet. She wiped her sticky fingers against the fabric of Blue’s gown, glancing over her shoulder towards Blue’s personal information panel by the divan. “How long do we have left before -?”

Before she could walk away, Blue stopped her with a touch to her wrist and a murmured, “Does it matter? Just -” Blue voice caught in her chest. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed thickly. “Just a moment longer. Stay with me.”

Slowly, Yellow allowed herself to be drawn back again. She turned her hand over and laced their fingers together. As Yellow traced her thumb across the backs of Blue’s knuckles, Blue closed her eyes. A long, idle breath unspooled from Yellow’s chest. Together, they went perfectly still, effigies hewn from the face of stars, and the seconds washed over them, the minutes, the hours.

“I’m here,” Yellow murmured. “I’m here.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1) The title is a reference to Albert Camus, Notebooks 1935-1942 ― “Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.”
> 
> 2) I maintain that Yellow calls Pink “honey” in ‘Jungle Moon’ and that it wasn’t Mrs. Mahasweran’s voice slipping through. Fight me.
> 
> 3) I made up the idea of Stagnation in order to explain White Diamond’s absence, as well as to draw upon Yellow’s fears. It also arose when I was researching the average age of diamonds, which is between 1-3.5 billion years.
> 
> 4) This started off as an exploration of the differences between how Blue and Yellow perceive their longevity (since this is meant to be a mirror of Blue’s perspective in ‘Colossal Intimacies’), but the whole thing devolved -- as it so often does -- into smut ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
